Page:Bohemian poems, ancient and modern (Lyra czecho-slovanska).djvu/81



HITHER, my country’s guardian Angel, now? Whither, O holy Genius, draw’st thou me? I gaze upon a wide abyss below— Is it Bohemia’s children’s grave I see?

‘’Tis of her glorious sons the cemetry, And there thine elder brethren buried stay; There quiet on their mothers breast they lie, After the mighty labours of their day.

‘There from three mountains tears of sorrow flow, Their woeful course throughout thou may’st behold, And through the sacred land those rivers go, Like Lethe, Styx and Acheron of old.

‘Where’er thou gazest, holy bones are there, To which posterity is deep in debt; Each hill thou see’st is Virtue’s sepulchre, Each castle as a glorious record set.

‘Here doth its glorious garlands in the shade This valiant nation to concealment give, Upon its mother’s bosom quiet laid, Like bees abiding in their monarch’s hive: